Black Tuesday marked the most famous final plunge of the 1929 Wall Street Crash in the United States.
It occurred on October 29, 1929, when roughly 16 million shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange. Prices collapsed after earlier panic selling on Black Thursday, October 24, and Black Monday, October 28. The crash followed years of speculative buying, widespread use of borrowed money, and growing concerns about the strength of the economy.
Black Tuesday did not single-handedly cause the Great Depression, but it became its best-known financial symbol. Bank failures, falling investment, declining industrial production, and reduced consumer spending deepened the economic crisis during the following years.
A common mix-up is treating Black Tuesday as the entire crash. The Wall Street Crash unfolded across several severe trading sessions, while the Great Depression was a much broader international economic collapse.